By Paul Roberts

B.B. Toad really didn’t look all that different from his brothers and sisters as a tadpole (biologists state that Western Toad eggs are laid in jelly like strings with up to 16,500 eggs per clutch), but when he thought back on those days, he realized that for some reason he felt different.

His time as a pole (approximately two months, according to the experts) was sort of a blur to him now. From egg hatching in the late spring to their final metamorphosis in late summer to early fall, he could recall being surrounded by the voices of all his brothers and sisters. As tadpoles they had gathered in the shallows of the pond, playing tag and racing each other to the nearest mouthful of algae or rotting fish. 

However, once his metamorphosis was complete, when he looked much more like mom and dad (Westerns are robust toads, with dry, warty skin; 2 to 5 inches from snout to vent; a mix of green, tan, reddish brown, and yellow in color, with a distinctive white stripe running down the middle of their backs - B.B. Toad thought his stripe was particularly striking), he felt a desire one day to leave the relative safety of the crowded pond and venture out on his own. 

It was a particularly warm autumn evening, and B.B. Toad had spent most of the day with his nose sticking just out of the water, waiting for a tasty morsel to fly, swim or skim by. But often, the pond seemed to teem more with family than with food. As the shadows lengthened and the darkening sky was streaked with an orange sunset glow, B.B. Toad moved to the edge of the pond, took one last, long look at the world as he had known it, and hopped passed the drying reeds and mud of the slowly receding water. And so began B.B. Toad’s big, bold trip to his brand new home.